Currently, in Delaware, it’s effectively illegal for a trained, certified midwife to attend a home birth. A new bill introduced in the state legislature last week aims to change that, and is one example of how a growing movement of midwives is seeking to change inconsistent state laws that often criminalize their practice.

Doctors in North Carolina performed a cesarean section on a woman who was not pregnant. The disciplinary action? A public “letter of concern.” A midwife would have had her license revoked. What’s wrong with this picture?

A bill in the Washington state Senate seeks to shut down the only association providing liability insurance to professional midwives, putting midwives in this state out of business and denying women one more option for safe childbirth.